a heart that's broke is a heart that's been loved
by teammccord
Summary: For Elizabeth, grief and love come in stages.


_This little story has been floating in the back of my mind for a while, partially because I find the exploration of Elizabeth's backstory and the ramifications of losing her parents so young fascinating, partially because I wanted to revisit young E&H now that I'm older (not that 22 is old, but…) and nearly done with uni, because my perspective on relationships has definitely changed. Thank you to A for all the encouragement and reading this over. I hope you enjoy. :') _

_Title is from "Supermarket Flowers" by Ed Sheeran. _

* * *

It's not that it's an accident the first time he says it, or that it should be a surprise to either of them considering the three months they've now spent in and out of each other's beds and apartments. They've surely said as much through glances and touches and gestures (though there are some he's planned of which she remains unawares) but it's an entirely different matter to hear the words out loud.

_I love you._

It's three words and eight letters and nary a syllable too many but as soon as they pass Henry's lips, Elizabeth feels her chest constrict and her heart speed up and her eyes blow wide. Her fight or flight instinct kicks in faster than she can blink and she pulls the soft woollen blanket draped across Henry's couch closer to her chest and wonders what it would feel like to breathe normally again.

It's not that it's a surprise so much as _unexpected,_ something she hasn't been given the time to prepare for. Because those three words, uttered by one's significant other, typically require a standard four-word response. And those four little words are currently making her feel a lot like getting up from this sofa and running to her boyfriend's bathroom to throw up.

Not exactly ideal.

Henry, to his credit, sees her obvious panic and, once he's given himself a second to look appropriately disappointed at her lack of reaction, schools his face into one of gentle care and concern. "Hey, hey, woah," he says, reaching out a hand as if to placate a shying foal. "It's okay, it's okay. You don't have to say anything."

Elizabeth nods, imperceptibly so, and tries not to flinch as Henry places what he must think is a comforting hand between her shoulder blades. He rubs circles in a gentle rhythm while she focuses on the basic mechanics of breathing, _in and out, in and out._ Silence stretches out before them, agonizingly loud.

Eventually, after her lungs refill with air, she brings her knees up to her chest and squeezes tight. "I'm sorry," she stammers, "I—"

Henry has moved on to tracing circles on her knee with his thumb, where he's taken to drawing more mindless patterns. She focuses on the small scar in the space between his thumbnail and the connecting joint, wonders idly where it came from, if he'll tell her someday.

Then she remembers she just had a panic attack after he told her he _loves_ her and no self-respecting guy would stick with a girl after that kind of rejection and now he'll leave her (and do it nicely too, because the boy is so damn _kind_ it's annoying sometimes) and she'll never know the story and she'll be all alone again and—

Henry tips her chin up with the thumb that's no longer on her knee. "You okay?" he asks, sporting a look that's half concern, half sheepish smile and all parts way more than she deserves right now. It costs her all her wits not to dissolve into tears right then and there. How is he still _here_?

She settles on letting out a wry chuckle, cocking a brow at him. "Me? I should ask you that question, honestly."

Henry's lips quirk into a tiny smile.

"Well, I'm worried about my girlfriend right now," he starts, and Elizabeth braces herself for the inevitable _because she apparently doesn't love me,_ but instead Henry says, "because I clearly moved too fast, or said something wrong, and now she's upset and I want to know how to help her."

He says it with such care and sincerity that she can't help the tears from spilling over, hot and wet and utterly pathetic, and she tries unsuccessfully to wipe them away with her sleeve. Henry just puts an arm around her and pulls her close. "Shh," he soothes, "it's okay."

She sniffles and pushes herself back up into a sitting position. "No, it's not, it's not okay at all because you just said _that_ and you're way too perfect and I can't even say those stupid little words—"

"Elizabeth," he says, and there's a hardness to his voice now. "It's _not_ stupid. You're not ready, and that's alright. I was a little bit fast there. Just… it happened, and now you know, and when you're ready, you can say something back. No pressure, okay?"

He presses a kiss to her temple and then her cheek and Elizabeth has to suppress another sob at this man, this wise old soul with the heart of a boy who wants to soar among the clouds. He is _much_ too good for her, for her messy, jagged edges and the weight she carries from an inheritance received far too early.

He is _much_ too good for her, and yet, he's here, and holding her close and letting her set the pace and it's too much, too kind, too forgiving. He deserves _something _in return, some piece of her heart that she's so fiercely locked away. A meagre prize for a noble knight willing to slay a dragon.

She takes a breath and looks down at her lap, absentmindedly fiddling with the fringe on Henry's blanket. When she speaks, her voice is quiet and raw.

"The last thing I told my parents, before they died, was to close my bedroom door."

xxx

Elizabeth is pretty sure the image of her brother, shell-shocked, standing at her front door with police car lights flashing behind him, is one that will never leave her mind, not until the day she dies. As soon as she opens the door, she's gathered Will in a hug, holding on for dear life.

She doesn't know what's going on, doesn't know where their parents are, but there's a feeling deep in her bones that something terrible has happened.

The officer standing behind her brother interrupts the moment too soon. Her eyes are kind but tinged with sadness and Elizabeth gulps. "Are you Elizabeth?" she asks.

A nod.

"Why don't we step inside for a minute, okay?"

The feeling of a boulder sinking to the pit of her stomach.

A cursory glance at the driveway.

No car. Just Will.

Two plus two equals four.

Three squared equals nine.

Seventy-three minus twenty-six equals forty-seven.

Mom plus Dad plus Will plus Elizabeth equals a family.

A missing variable.

"Where are our parents?"

xxx

There is safety in numbers, surety in sums and equations, clarity in patterns. Elizabeth finds solace in formulas, security in a search for one answer, rational and true.

It helps her forget about things that aren't rational, that make no sense.

Why the car was hit, why only Will made it, why she wasn't there in his place. Why she feels nauseous when she sees strawberry ice cream, why she cries herself to sleep at night, why she can't learn about Euclid without flinching.

Why she replays a five-minute scene from her childhood bedroom over and over and over again, hoping without fail that the end will turn out differently. Hoping that "close the door" becomes, "hang on, I'm coming," or "sorry, I love you," or that they never leave at all.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

By that standard, she thinks wryly, her feet swinging over the sides of the roof of Sukaly dorm, that she must be certifiable by now. There's a bottle of cheap champagne sitting on the ground next to her, not at all befitting the crown prince with whom she's sharing this crisp spring night.

"Lizzy, if you wanted someone to tell you you're mad, you would've just had to ask."

She snorts, and she can feel some of the bubbles tingling in her nose. She fights the urge to sneeze, instead jabbing Joey in the ribs, hard. He yelps in mock-outrage before shoving her right back.

Elizabeth laughs, looking over at her friend with a smile. She takes another swig from the bottle and hisses as the fizz passes down her throat. They're nearly seventeen and the world is their oyster — or so they're told. But generic life-affirming messages don't exactly account for being orphaned or having to one day rule a small kingdom, now do they?

They make quite a pair, Elizabeth thinks, Joey and her, with their burdens to carry. Maybe it's why they became such fast friends: feisty kids with the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Even though Joey doesn't _get it_ — he has two perfectly alive parents, and she could not be more jealous — he gets it. Gets the fear of disappointment, the expectations put on him as the oldest, gets that sometimes, the world is just too much and you need to escape to the roof and feel tiny among the stars, like little insignificant specks in the vast universe.

"If I believed in God," she says, resting back on her elbows and gazing up at the night sky, "I would say they're looking down at me and Will, twinkling or something to show us they're there."

Joey hums. "Which stars would they be?"

Elizabeth cocks her head, trying to scour the constellations for Ben and Suzanne. It's odd to remember them by their first names, but sometimes she forces herself to. They weren't _just_ parents, they were whole people with complicated lives.

After a few minutes, she settles on two stars, a little apart from the nearest constellation. One is a bit smaller than the other, but shines just as bright. "Those ones," she says, and she smiles.

Joey nods approvingly. "Hi Mr. and Mrs. Adams," he says cheerfully. "Nice to meet you. I'm Joey, your daughter's friend. Please ignore the champagne."

Elizabeth bursts out laughing even though she feels like crying inside.

xxx

Her aunt Clarice drops her and Will, and all her boxes, off on the sidewalk next to Kimbark on her first day of college. She stiffly tells Elizabeth to behave and hands her an envelope with her allowance for the month, and then reminds Will she'll be back to pick him up in an hour and a half to drive him to Houghton for the year.

No hugs are exchanged as she slips back into the sedan and the Adams siblings are left on the curb to fend for themselves.

She feels eyes on her as they lug the boxes up flights of stairs to her new double, new students and parents wondering where the adults have gone to. _I'm the adult! _a voice inside her wants to scream, but she can't help but feel jealous too, of all the girls with dads to carry their mini-fridges and moms to make their beds.

Her roommate doesn't move in until tomorrow; one less person to explain herself to today.

"Love you, Lizzy," Will says when their aunt is back and tapping her watch impatiently, a bright smile on his face. "Good luck in college."

Elizabeth doesn't reply. Instead, she hugs him impossibly tight.

xxx

Henry, well… Henry is a revelation.

She meets him in the library, where they collide (literally) somewhere between Euler and Gauss. She's looking for a theorem for a paper; he's shelving books for his work study job.

It's a fumble of limbs and papers and bashful smiles and hurried apologies until they're both straightened out again. It begins like it does in every bad romcom she always avoids watching: boy bumps into girl, sparks fly, they both ignore it and pretend nothing happened.

A week later, another "chance" meeting in the depths of the stacks, names exchanged and a tentative coffee planned. He has kind eyes, she notices, and she thinks he might develop laugh lines when he gets older, little crinkles around the corners that show a life well-lived.

In the stacks, it's all hushed tones and yellowed lighting, stolen glances and unspoken promises.

Out in the daylight, in the campus coffee shop over lattes, Elizabeth gets to take him in fully, the unruly mop of hair and knit sweater, leather book bag dropped unceremoniously at his feet. If his smile is any indication to go by, she thinks, he might be one of the nicest people she's ever met.

He's also incredibly easy to talk to. Hours pass in a matter of minutes, and before they know it, the sun has set outside and the January chill sends a howling wind through the streets. They bundle up in gloves and scarves and share an awkward hug as a goodbye — it seems too formal and casual at the same time.

"Will I see you again?" Henry asks, head tipped just slightly to the side.

Elizabeth pretends to consider his offer, smirking and pushing herself up and down on her toes to ward off the chill. "Hmm," she says eventually, eyes glinting. "You just might."

One coffee turns into two, turns into lunch and dinner and more coffee, with study sessions crammed in between. Henry becomes a fixture in her life without her asking him to, just slips his way in between classes and homework and the small number of friends she's found since she started at UVa.

It's easy with him, effortless, sitting and talking about everything and nothing at all. It's not personal, not yet, because if there's one thing Elizabeth guards with her life it's her heart. But it's playful and intellectual and challenging in the best of ways and she thinks she could get used to this, this _boy_ who's wormed his way under her skin.

When he presses his lips to hers under an awning connecting the student union to a lecture hall, after they've narrowly escaped a torrential bout of rain, she closes her eyes and sighs and thinks she could _definitely_ get used to this, for a long, long time.

(It should scare her more than it does, she thinks later, when she's back in her dorm room and staring at the cinderblock wall. But endorphins do weird things to your brain, that's basic chemistry, so she closes her eyes and decides to ride the high a little longer.)

For the first time since she turned fifteen, Elizabeth feels something akin to safety and comfort, and it scares her shitless. She's lying in Henry's bed on flannel sheets and he's drawing mindless patterns on her shoulder blade with his thumb. It should be relaxing, should be sending her straight to sleep, but instead, her mind is gearing up into overdrive and every instinct inside her is screaming _run, run, run._

Instead, she holds her breath and counts prime numbers — two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen — to calm her racing heart.

Henry notices, of course he does, and asks if she's okay, and Elizabeth nods and says, yes, of course she is, she just needs a little water, that's all. He nods and plants a kiss on her cheek before going to the kitchen to get some, leaving Elizabeth alone between rapidly cooling sheets.

(There has to be some catch to this, some wrench thrown in by the universe, something to ruin this. It cannot be this wonderful; life doesn't work that way. Elizabeth knows this, all too well, because fate is a cruel card-dealer and her hand can't take much more.

So she braces herself, like she always does. Her fight or flight response is almost always geared toward the former. She likes to test things: boundaries, people. She pokes them and prods them to push them at arm's length when they get too close. It's a surefire way to save herself even more disappointment.)

She thanks him when he gets back and drinks half the glass, mostly to pass time, before setting it on the bedside table. Then she blurts out, "I don't believe in God, by the way," before her mind even registers what her mouth is doing.

Henry, to his credit, schools his features from shock to confusion quite smoothly, before leaning against the headboard and training his eyes on Elizabeth. "Okay," he says.

"Okay?" she repeats, a question this time. His answer is definitely not what she expected, from a theology major who goes to Sunday mass no less.

He nods. "Okay. I have no idea where this came from, but okay." Elizabeth must look vaguely stunned, because Henry cracks a smile and lets out a wry chuckle. "It's your business what you do and don't believe, babe," he says, and the ease with which the endearment rolls off his tongue sends a shiver down her spine.

"But you're—" she starts.

Henry shrugs. "Yeah, I'm studying religion, but not because I'm some kind of devout theist. Half the time I'm still figuring out what I believe myself."

Elizabeth doesn't know what to say to that. She expected an argument, some kind of heated thing, about theology and morality and how a Catholic and a non-religious person could never, ever work. She'd expected the other shoe to drop, has been waiting for it to, honestly, since the first time they got coffee.

But it's still hanging on. And maybe, just maybe, so could they.

She looks at Henry, really looks at him, all soft smile and kind eyes and bedhead and lets out a breath. "Okay," she says, finally relaxing into his side again. "Okay."

xxx

Their first fight is about something so stupid that she can't even remember what it was by the time they're in the thick of it.

All she knows is that they started raising their voices somewhere around ten minutes ago in the middle of Henry's kitchen and now he's pulling on a coat and boots and telling her that he needs some space. The door slams on the way out and Elizabeth is left standing there, a pot of pasta on the counter and an unopened jar of sauce in her hands.

The thread ripped, the shoe is on the floor and Elizabeth scolds herself for being this goddamn stupid.

She should have expected this, because it's not like anyone is that perfect or actually stays, anyway. At one point or another, they all leave.

She puts the jar on the counter, shakes her head and starts gathering her things. A whole month, they made it. It's a new record for her, though a sorry one at that. As she's tying her shoelaces she mentally starts making a list of places to avoid now that Henry inevitably won't ever want to see her again. Not that she would want to see him either. It would hurt too much.

She moves as if on auto-pilot, zipping up her coat and making sure the door locks behind her. Another chapter, closed. She doesn't let herself feel anything as she walks down the stairs of his apartment building out into the cold, because it's her fault she's in this situation and she doesn't deserve any pity, not even her own.

She's so caught up that she almost runs into someone as she's leaving. It's Henry. He looks about as stunned as she feels.

"Elizabeth?" She stops dead in her tracks. "Where are you going?"

She looks at him like he's grown a third eye. "You _left_."

Immediately, Henry's face changes and his eyes grow wide. "I didn't leave, I just… I needed some air. I was always gonna come back."

xxx

A week after Henry tells Elizabeth he loves her and she turns into a hyperventilating mess, she asks him to drive her out into the countryside on Saturday morning.

She meets him by his old, beaten up sedan with a bouquet of flowers and two cups of coffee. Henry greets her with a kiss and asks no questions. She's grateful for it.

They don't talk much on the drive, save for Elizabeth's occasional directions. It's a comfortable kind of silence, one she can sink into, warm and safe. Or maybe it's just what she feels when she's with Henry. That might be even better.

They pass horse farms and country houses and orchards and winding roads and every mile they drive brings up countless memories. If her eyes go misty, Henry has the grace not to mention it.

The cemetery is at the end of a long gravel drive, marked off by wrought iron fences and a big gate. Hundreds of headstones stretch out over the grounds, in all shapes and sizes and styles, as diverse as the people they're commemorating.

Henry squeezes Elizabeth's hand as they get out of the car, and she starts walking toward the gate. It creaks as she pulls it open, and she feels a pang of guilt at how long it's been since she was last here.

Her parents are buried ten rows back, three headstones to the right. She knows the path by memory, could walk it blind if she tried. Her pace is brisk and her footsteps crunch on the half-frozen ground, Henry's a half-step behind her.

The headstone is simple, a choice made by children too young to understand and an aunt who harboured too much resentment. It's engraved only with their names and dates, stark against the stone.

She wondered once, right after the funeral, if they would have liked it. Her aunt Clarice told her she was being foolish. Will said he thought so. Neither made Elizabeth feel any closer to an answer.

Now, she places the bouquet of peonies — her mother's favourite — on the frozen ground and studies the grave. She noticed earlier that Henry stayed back a respectful distance, keeping an eye on her while giving her privacy. It makes her heart clench in her chest.

Elizabeth has never been good at this, talking to graves. She doesn't quite know what to say, can't seem to shake the feeling that she's talking into the void and no one will hear her anyway.

Usually, she'll tell her parents the normal things: how she's doing in school, that she and Will still tease each other relentlessly, that she visits the horses whenever she can and that Frank, who runs the stables, is gruff as ever.

This time feels more important.

"Hey, mom and dad," she says, scuffing the toe of her boot on the ground. "It's me, Lizzy. I'm doing alright, classes are good. I still miss you guys, every day. I, uh, I wanted you to meet someone. His name is Henry, and he's back there. He drove me today."

She thinks of Henry standing in the cold and giving her the time and space she needs, of how he handled her lack of answer, how every time she tells him little things about her past he doesn't prod for more. How in three months, he's broken down her walls more than anyone else has in years.

How she feels safe with him, protected.

How she trusts him.

"He's been wonderful," she says, smiling. "He makes me laugh and he makes sure I don't just eat popcorn and ice cream and we can talk about anything and I think…" Tears are welling up in her eyes, but they're the good kind today. "I think I love him, and I know he loves me. And I think you'd love him too."

It's the first time she's said the words since they've been gone and it feels like a weight lifting off her chest. The tears are flowing in earnest now and she wipes them with her sleeve.

She sniffles and lets out a wet chuckle before turning around and beckoning Henry over. He notices the tears but she shakes her head and smiles. Elizabeth takes his hand and turns to face the gravestone again.

"Henry, meet my parents."

Henry gives a small wave with his free hand. "Hello Mr. and Mrs. Adams," he says, and Elizabeth smiles and leans her head on his shoulder. "I wish we could meet in person, so I could tell you how lucky I am to have met your daughter…"

Later, as they're walking hand in hand back to the car, Elizabeth's head on Henry's shoulder, there's a deep seated sense of calm blooming in her chest. It's warm and fuzzy and all things wonderful, and it's because of Henry. Because he loves her.

She stops them by the gate and turns so they're facing each other. She studies Henry's face, looks for any hint of resentment and finds only care and love in its place.

"I love you," she says simply, without any pretence.

Henry smiles, and dips forward to kiss her once, hard. "I love you too."

Then he takes her hand and they push open the gate together.


End file.
